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Friday, December 16, 2016

At the end of this week, your child's first semester progress report will arrive in your homes. It's always a great time to reflect on all that our student's have accomplished . . . both as learners, friends, and classroom citizens. You may notice that there are several markers in the Mathematics section of the report that are marked as "not introduced". As you know, we've shifted our curriculum to Math In Focus (MIF), which has a different emphasis in content and sequence. We will be revising the math section of our progress report for next year, giving us this year to implement MIF and identify our priority learning objectives in the curriculum. Please refer to the narrative comments to gauge your child's progress in math this year.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

As part of our holidays around the world study, we celebrated St. Lucia Day today. St. Lucia Day is celebrated at this time of year in Sweden--for more information, check here. Our own Ms. Thomson was St. Lucia, and visited the classroom to share pepperkakor, a ginger cookie, with the children. Tradition says that if you make a wish when you press the pepperkakor and it breaks into three pieces, then your wish is granted!

Then it was time to try our homemade St. Lucia buns. Check here for more information on the traditional saffron buns. We used a gluten-free recipe with a dusting of cinnamon and sugar (along with some icing). It was delicious!

Friday, December 9, 2016

During our math workshop this week, we explored how we can write equations to show how we put numbers together. We talked about there are lots of ways to show how smaller numbers are put together to make larger numbers.

We can use number bonds with our app Bird Bonds...

Or create number bonds with a partner and fill in the missing "part..."

Or add the dots on a domino together and write an equation to match!

Everyone also had the opportunity to build a number line and play snowman squeeze! Snowman squeeze is a game where one friend sets snowmen on either side of a number line and thinks of a number. Their partner guesses the number, and the friend moves the snowman to show if the number is greater or less than their guess. Slowly the snowmen "squeeze" towards the correct number. The game is great for thinking about more than and less than.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Today was time to use our imaginations and our growth mindsets... to build from recycled materials and create something for the holidays.

The first task was to make a Christmas tree using Model Magic, straws and tape. The only rule was that the tree needed to be free-standing.

Then it was time for our dreidel challenge. Children and their buddies were invited to use either a milk carton or egg cartons to create a dreidel. The only rule was that the dreidel needed to spin on its own.

Great work thinkers! We will meet up with our buddies again in January.